then, again in the shelter of rocks, he swerved and sought
a hiding place, watching anxiously from his concealment for evidences
of discovery. There were none. The shadower came on, displaying more
and more caution as he approached the rocks, glancing hurriedly about
him as he moved swiftly from cover to cover. Closer--closer--then
Fairchild repressed a gasp. The man was old, almost white-haired, with
hard, knotted hands which seemed to stand out from his wrists; thin and
wiry with the resiliency that outdoor, hardened muscles often give to
age, and with a face that held Fairchild almost hypnotized. It was
like a hawk's; hook-beaked, colorless, toneless in all expressions save
that of a malicious tenacity; the eyes were slanted until they
resembled those of some fantastic Chinese image, while just above the
curving nose a blue-white scar ran straight up the forehead,--Squint
Rodaine!

So he was on the trail already! Fairchild watched him pass, sneak
around the corner of the rocks, and stand a moment in apparent
bewilderment as he surveyed the ground before him. A mumbling curse
and he went on, his cautious gait discarded, walking briskly along the
rutty, boulder-strewn road toward a gaping hole in the hill, hardly a
furlong away. There he surveyed the ground carefully, bent and stared
hard at the earth, apparently for a trace of footprints, and finding
none, turned slowly and looked intently all about him. Carefully he
approached the mouth of the tunnel and stared within. Then he
straightened, and with another glance about him, hurried off up a gulch
leading away from the road, into the hills. Fairchild lay and watched
him until he was out of sight, and he knew instinctively that a
surveyor would only cover beaten territory now. Squint Rodaine, he
felt sure, had pointed out to him the Blue Poppy mine.

But he did not follow the direction given by his pursuer. Squint
Rodaine was in the hills. Squint Rodaine might return, and the
consciousness of caution bade that Fairchild not be there when he came
back. Hurriedly he descended the rocks once more to turn toward town
and toward Mother Howard's boarding house. He wanted to tell her what
he had seen and to obtain her help and counsel.

Quickly he made the return trip, crossing the little bridge over the
turbulent Clear Creek and heading toward the boarding house. Half a
block away he halted, as a woman on the veranda of the big, squarely
built "hotel" p